DeKalb Police Chief Bill Feithen is trying to make a difference.

Feithen and over 100 members of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) went to Washington D.C. to address the budget cuts that will affect local police forces across the nation.

The proposed budget for 2009 includes just over a $1.1 billion cut to funding for local law enforcement programs.

Feithen and other members of the IACP went to Capitol Hill to get their concerns about the budget cut out in the open.

Feithen said it was crucial for the IACP to make the trip to Washington.

“Law enforcement has taken significant cuts in popular programs that are crucial to many communities, and it was very important for us to meet the staffers and senators and congressman,” Feithen said.

The budget cuts would impact Byrne and JAG funding. This money is used in the community to make a safer environment.

“Byrne funding helps fund drug enforcement task forces,” Feithen said.

Each county is assigned a group of officers who take care of drug issues in the area. Most small towns do not have the man power to designate to a drug task force.

“If Byrne funding is cut, the existence of those task forces are jeopardized,” Feithen said. “I see on a daily basis how important the task force is to the community. It’s going to hurt small towns significantly.”

Feithen said he receives a lot of calls from residents about drug activity in the neighborhood and ever since 2000, the task force has resolved the incident, usually with an arrest.

The money is also used for drug courts and programs to put police officers in schools.

The five police chiefs from Illinois who went to Washington D.C. spoke with staff members for Illinois senators Barack Obama and Dick Durbin’s. Feithen said he felt a lot of support from the senators’ staffers.

“We felt very positive and very good about the experience,” Feithen said.

The money that is being cut from these programs is going toward homeland security. Feithen said he does not believe this is a good idea, because it leaves out local law enforcement.

“You still have to keep citizens safe,” Feithen said. “It doesn’t do us any good to fight a war on terror across the ocean when we’re allowing criminals to kill children and deal drugs at home. These funds do very little for the day-to-day officers.”

Wendy Balazik,spokeswoman for the IACP, said there are no updates on the budget yet.

“The Congressional calendar is made at the beginning of the week and could be totally different by the end of the week,” Balazik said. “It hasn’t been brought up for vote.”

All comments are moderated before being published. We will not edit your comments, but we also will not approve those that are abusive, off-topic, attack another poster or contain information we know to be libelous or false.

During peak weekday viewing times, most comments will be reviewed within six hours. For more detailed information, click here.

After submitting your comment, check below for a confirmation message.

• Your name:
• Enter text from image:
  

• Your comment:

* 300-character count. HTML formatting will not display.